Redemption (13 page)

She objected, reminding him that she hadn’t agreed to anything. But that didn’t stop him.

“One full year. You have to run the café for one full year. Then if you still want to leave, well, I don’t give a damn.”

“Why do you care anyway? You’ll be dead. What does it matter to you what I do with my life?”

He studied her, frowning. “I owe it to your mother. Your birth mother.”

She scowled at that. “Why do you owe her anything? You still haven’t told me what you have to do with all of this.”

“I tried to help her, all right? I failed. I’ll probably fail you, too. But damned if I’m not going to try.” He sounded out of breath and she noticed that he was perspiring heavily.

“What about my biological father?” she had to ask.

“I think it is probably best if—” He started wheezing, all the color draining from his face. A moment later he was lying on the floor at her feet.

She’d come too far to quit now. She would just have to finish what she’d come to Beartooth for—and soon.

What she wouldn’t do was let anyone stop her. Not the two men who’d been looking for her earlier. And especially not Jack French.

It wasn’t until later, when she’d gone up to her apartment, that she saw the note where Jack must have dropped it earlier. It lay on the couch, next to the dead man’s hat.

CHAPTER NINE

“
I
NEED TO SEE YOU
.”

Frank sat up in bed, his gaze going to the clock on the night table as the phone rang. Not quite eight in the morning and on a Monday.

He rubbed a hand over his face. Because of the fair, he’d had two long days and nights. No wonder he felt as if he hadn’t had any sleep. He barely had. He’d planned to sleep in this morning since he had the day off.

He’d listened to the messages left on his phone, but it had been too late to call Lynette last night. Seeing who was calling, he picked up the phone and said, “Lynette, if this is about Kate LaFond—”

“It’s my new renter. There’s something I need to show you. I think she might be dangerous.” Lynette took a breath and then said, “Did you find out something about Kate?”

He let out a sigh, realizing there was no way he would be able to get back to sleep now. “I’ll tell you when I see you. I’m on my way.”

“Hurry. She could be back at any moment.”

He hung up, swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat for a moment, head in hands, trying to wake up.

Her renter might be dangerous? He thought of the girl he’d seen framed in the upstairs window over the store. She looked like a child. Why would Lynette think she was dangerous?

Pushing to his feet, he reminded himself as he dressed that he trusted her instincts. Lynette had been right about Kate LaFond—at least in her suspicions that there was something odd about how the young woman had come to own the café.

Kate had made it clear that Claude’s reasons for leaving her the café were her business. He wondered what Lynette would make of that.

Lynette was waiting when he arrived at the Beartooth General Store. She appeared distressed—but even so, she was still beautiful. He loved the way she’d aged. He fought the urge to take her in his arms and tell her everything was going to be fine.

“Are you all right?” he asked, wishing now that he’d returned her calls last night even though it had been late.

“I’m worried about
you.
”

“Me?”

She reached behind the counter and thrust a handful of thick paper at him.

As he glanced down at the first sketch, he was surprised to see his own likeness. It wasn’t half bad.

“Did you do these?” he asked.

She made a face at him that questioned his intelligence. “My
renter
. I found them hidden under her mattress.”

“Lynette—”

“Don’t bother lecturing me. I have every right to check the apartment. In this case, she’d asked me to fix a leaky faucet. Look at the rest of the sketches,” she said as she filled him in on what she knew of her renter.

He glanced at the second sketch. By the third one, he was frowning. A cold chill snaked up his spine as he thumbed through the rest and saw that they were all of him.

“You say she paid six months’ in advance?”

“Cash. She says she’s getting her portfolio ready for art school.” He heard the disbelief in Lynette’s tone. “The first day I rented the apartment to her, she seemed more interested in what was going on over at the café than the apartment. Guess who was standing outside that day in front of the café?
You
. Later she was staring out the window again, and I saw you talking to that group of ranchers at the front table.”

“I’m sure there’s an explanation,” he said as he glanced again at the sketches.

“She makes you look like you’re possessed by the devil,” Lynette said, tapping one of the sketches.

Something like that,
he thought. Each portrayed a malevolence in him that alarmed him.

“Where is she now?”

Lynette shook her head. “She said she was going to Bozeman.” All her doubt was evident in her dour expression.

“You should put these back under her mattress where you found them.”

“You aren’t going to ignore this, are you?” she demanded, looking scared again.

“No, I’ll talk to the girl.”

Lynette seemed to relax a little. “I had a feeling the day she showed up here that I shouldn’t rent her the apartment.”

“Lynette, don’t buy trouble. Like I said, I’m sure there’s an explanation.”

“For why she’s stalking you? Did you notice in some of the sketches you’re sitting at your dining room table on the ranch?”

He hadn’t. He’d been too shocked by the way she’d drawn his eyes, the hard line of his jaw, the cruel twist of his mouth.

“Put these back, please, and don’t say anything to her until I get a chance to talk to her, all right?”

Lynette nodded. “Just be careful. I have this awful feeling that she’s dangerous.”

It wasn’t until he’d left, first checking around town for the car Lynette said the girl drove, then driving down the road toward Big Timber, watching for it, that he realized how worried Lynette had been for him. She hadn’t even asked what he’d found out about Kate LaFond.

* * *

A
S
K
ATE NEARED
the W Bar G corrals, she wished she hadn’t listened to Jack French. She’d never been to a branding and she wasn’t sure she wanted to see one now as she heard a cacophony of mooing cows.

But as she pulled in, she spotted Bethany Reynolds, her waitress, standing near the barn where food had been laid out on several long tables. She couldn’t very well leave now, she thought with a silent curse. So she parked and got out, telling herself she wouldn’t stay long.

As Kate put down the tray of cinnamon rolls she’d brought, she felt more ill at ease in this alien environment than she had when she’d arrived in Beartooth.

“Kate?” Bethany said excitedly. “I can’t believe you actually came to a branding. Is this your first?”

She had to admit it was and Bethany began telling her everything that was going to happen as they walked out toward the corrals. The sound of bawling calves and cows grew louder—along with the strong smell of burning hide.

Kate had never given any thought to how cows were branded. She had no idea it was such a large, noisy operation.

“On branding day, the cutters split out cows with calves,” Bethany explained. “In the old days, the ropers swung a loop over the calves, took a couple of dally welts around the saddle horn and dragged them over to the fire. There calf wrestlers flanked and flopped them so the brander could hit them with a hot iron. Bawling calves got an ear tag and a couple of shots to keep them healthy and then were released.”

As they neared the corrals, Kate saw a sea of black calves being herded into smaller corrals, then into a wooden chute, where each one was pushed through an even smaller chute, though this one was made of metal.

“On the W Bar G, the calves are herded into a corral and from there sent one at a time into a chute, where they’re prodded onto a calf table,” Bethany was saying. “It’s like a narrow chute that turns into a table when it’s laid over. Each calf then gets a brand burned into its hide.”

Once the calf was caught in the metal chute, it was just as Bethany said. The chute laid over on its side to became a table, the calf flopping loudly onto its side.

“See how the calf table holds the calf’s head while a cowboy throws a loop around the calf’s hind leg to hold him still,” Bethany was saying.

Kate watched as Jack French pulled a branding iron from a makeshift oven, stepped to the calf and applied the smoking-hot iron. The calf let out a loud moo, the stench of burned hide and smoke rising in the air, and was quickly released.

She had to cover her mouth to keep from crying out. “Doesn’t it hurt?”

“It’s quick and they have a thicker hide than us.”

Kate watched the calf run around the corral for a moment before joining the others, apparently unhurt.

“It’s an honor to be chosen to do the actual branding,” Bethany said, no doubt noticing Kate watching Jack work at one of three branding tables. “I’m still surprised that Destry chose Jack. It’s not everyone she lets brand her cattle. You have to get the brand in the right spot and it has to be legible from a distance.”

She had no idea there was so much involved.

“Brands are put on in one of three places usually—left or right shoulder, side, or left or right hip,” Bethany explained. “Most of the newer brands require two to three branding irons because they are more than two letters or numbers. Takes more time.”

“Why doesn’t everyone have a two-letter brand?” Kate asked.

“They aren’t available,” she explained. “You have to apply for a brand or buy someone’s who is no longer using it. Most people hang on to their brands. Having a two-letter brand usually shows that the ranch has been around for a while. W. T. Grant designed the W Bar G ranch brand.”

Kate saw that the W Bar G’s brand was WG with a bar over the two letters. She was mesmerized by how efficient Jack was at branding. Bethany whispered, “Here comes Chantell Hyett. Jack’s old girlfriend.”

Kate turned to see a tall, beautiful woman with long blond hair and blue eyes headed for them. The woman was dressed in Western attire and exuded confidence, looking as if she fit right in out here with the cows and the cowboys.

“You must be Kate,” Chantell said, and gave her the once-over. She clearly didn’t seem impressed with what she saw. “Jack mentioned you work at the café.”

“She
owns
the cafe,” Bethany said, coming to her defense.

“I’m sorry, Jack hasn’t mentioned you,” Kate said. “And you’re...”

The blonde’s nose went up in the air. “I’m his girlfriend, Chantell Hyett.”

“I thought you two broke up after you dumped him when he went to prison,” Bethany said.

Kate laid a hand on her arm. She could defend herself. “Well, there’s Jack right over there,” Kate said, pointing to him. “I assume that was where you were headed.”

Chantell didn’t give them a backward glance as she sauntered toward Jack, who was busy turning up the heat on the branding irons.

“What did Jack ever see in that woman?” Bethany said.

Kate knew that men often didn’t see beyond a pretty face and a nice body. Chantell had both, she thought as she watched the woman stop next to Jack and lean toward him, saying something over the bawling of the calves about to be branded.

As Kate watched, she saw Chantell shoot a look in her direction, then grab Jack’s shirt and pull him into a quick kiss. Some of the cowboys sitting along the corral fence began to hoot and holler.

Jack said something to Chantell, then looked in Kate’s direction. Kate didn’t watch to see Jack’s reaction. Her own response was a painful ache in her stomach as she turned and said over her shoulder to Bethany, “I need to get back to the café.”

In truth, she just needed distance. From Jack French, from Beartooth and from this horrible feeling of jealousy that clamped down on her heart like a vise.

She needed to dig, she thought as she climbed into her pickup, started the engine and headed for Ackermann Hollow.

* * *

J
ACK
F
RENCH HAD
always believed that everything happened for a reason. Usually the reason was that the universe just wanted to see how bad it could make his life. At least that had been the old Jack’s attitude.

At prison, he’d met too many men who thought it was bad luck that had put them there. He liked to think he was smarter than that, which meant admitting that it hadn’t been just bad luck that he’d ended up in prison—but that he’d contributed through his don’t-give-a-damn behavior.

He was thinking about that as he loaded up his pickup after the branding was over for the day.

“I finally remembered where I knew her from,” Carson said, joining him.

Jack knew at once that he was referring to Kate LaFond. He just didn’t know if he wanted to hear this.

“She was going by the name Melissa Logan and working as a waitress at this place outside of Vegas called Pop’s Oasis.”

“Melissa Logan,” Jack repeated. “You’re sure?”

“Positive. There was this waitress named Connie. A friend of mine went out with her a few times. I just called down there a few moments ago. Connie remembered me, and guess what she told me?”

Jack shoved back his hat. “You aren’t seriously going to make me guess, are you?”

“Connie said that some old man showed up one day, saying he knew Melissa’s mother. Melissa quit a few days later. That was the last she heard from her.”

“What old man?”

“Connie didn’t know. But she did say that Melissa had seemed upset. When Connie asked, Melissa said she was about to take the biggest gamble of her life and to wish her luck.”

“Strange,” Jack said. “I wonder what all that was about?”

Carson scratched at the back of his neck. “I debated whether to tell you. But I figured you have a right to know what you’re getting involved with.”